About this activity
Fourteen irregular verbs in both forms: run and ran, go and went, eat and ate, see and saw, fall and fell, make and made, take and took, give and gave, drink and drank, write and wrote, sleep and slept. All high frequency, which is why they are irregular — the commonest verbs resist regularisation, and they are also the ones a child needs first.
How to use it in a session
Group them by the kind of change. Drink to drank and sit to sat change the vowel; go to went is a completely different word; sleep to slept changes the vowel and adds a sound. Naming the groups is more useful than fourteen separate facts, even though the groups are rough. Then use them in a sentence with yesterday, which forces the past form. Ten minutes covers the fourteen.
What to listen for
Listen for overregularisation. Goed, eated and runned are not errors of ignorance but of rule application — the child has the past tense rule and is applying it where English does not — and they are a developmentally positive sign. Watch for double marking, as in wented, which shows the same thing more clearly still.
Carrying it home
Recasting works better than correcting here. When a child says I goed, say oh, you went, and carry on — the correct form is heard in the right place and the conversation does not stop.
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- First through fourth, and older students learning English as an additional language.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all fourteen pairs play with no login.
- Is 'goed' a sign of a problem?
- Usually the opposite. It shows the child has worked out the past tense rule and is applying it to a verb that does not follow it, which is a normal and encouraging stage.